Friday, August 06, 2010

In reply to the post Birtherism Lives, and in particular, the comments of my nutty buddy Donald Douglas, who claims not to be a birther, himself, but goes on to express and espouse many of the birther's most vociferous arguments, to whit:

"Barack Obama has not released his full medical birth report, with doctors’ signatures, etc. Newspaper announcements can be forged. And Obama has a history of secrecy — no one has seen his academic transcripts. You don’t have to be a ‘birther’ to have doubts about the president’s honesty. All you’ve posted is the ‘certif’cation of live birth’, who knows if that’s authentic, and Markos Moulitsas was the first to claim he published a copy of it a Daily Kos, so that tells you something." -- Americaneocon, Wednesday, August 4, 2010 at 23:50

and

"@ Steven: I’m not invested in this and have written about Obama’s birth perhaps once on my blog. I just don’t like soft thinking.
You write:
“Again: this is the exact document that any other American would use as proof of birth and is colloquially known as a “birth certificate” (the rearranging of the words does not change the nature of the document). By your logic, I cannot prove that my own children were born in the US (as the only official documents issued to me by two states, 1 from Texas and 2 from Alabama) look exactly like the “certificate of live birth” issued by the state of Hawaii for Obama.”
Even accepting the possibility that Obama’s Certification of Live Birth, which is the document you have provided above, is authentic, questions remain as to whether that is sufficient to demonstrate eligibility. So to be clear: A “Certification of Live Birth” is not the same thing as a long-form birth certificate. At the time of Obama’s birth, the state of Hawaii made long-form birth certificates available. These included the name of the hospital and the attending physician, name and address of the parents, the race of the parents and the race of the baby, etc. The long form includes signatures of the doctors attending. The state of Hawaii’s long form certificates in 1961 were numbered in order with serial numbers. This is what people refer to when they talk about their “birth certificate.” I have mine (from Landstuhl military hospital). I have my children’s (from county records in California). Since Hawaii records show that these long-form documents were available at the time, why hasn’t Obama released his, and why has the hospital refused to release it? (And this says nothing about your children, or mine. No one is proving the eligibility of your children, or mine, for president of the United States.) The short form you have provided is a computer generated certification. No hospital or doctor is listed.
Even if that is sufficient for you, there were multiple ways to obtain a Hawaiian COLB that would leave open the possibility that the person in question was born outside of the state. No doctor or midwife, or any medical professional, in 1961, was required to certify to the Department of Health the facts of the birth. One parent was required to provide proof of residency and a pre-natal and post-natal certificate by a physician. A pre-natal report would show the mother was pregnant. The post-natal report would certify a newborn was seen by a doctor. Thus, it’s possible that a child born outside Hawaii could still receive a state COLB. As of today, it is still possible for a child born outside of Hawaii to obtain a short-form COLB using official state form s338-17.8. Go ahead and search it on Google.
Also, newspaper announcements are not legal proof of official birth.

This discussion, therefore, places doubt on your claim at the post above that Obama’s birth is a matter of ”a simple, empirically knowable fact …”

Empiricism requires evidence. And in the case of the birth of Barack Hussein Obama, that evidence is virtually entirely absent. Hence, it’s entirely reasonable for 6 of 10 at the CNN poll to have doubts about Obama’s U.S. birth story. You, sir, are in the minority." -- Americaneocon, Thursday, August 5, 2010 at 22:31

Even accepting the possibility that Obama’s Certification of Live Birth, which is the document you have provided above, is authentic, questions remain as to whether that is sufficient to demonstrate eligibility.

According to who? The COLB is sufficient to demonstrate eligibility for all manner of legal and government licenses and other official documents, employment, and security clearances. What official or legal entity is claiming the COLB as issued by the state of Hawaii is not sufficient for demonstrating eligibility for President Obama’s current position?

The state of Hawaii’s long form certificates in 1961 were numbered in order with serial numbers. This is what people refer to when they talk about their “birth certificate.”

In California, perhaps, but in Hawaii, the document citizens receive when they make a request to the Department of Health is the COLB. (And if I'm not mistaken, these documents carry the very same serial numbers as the long form documents--in that familiar fixed order, like serial numbers tend to be, being, y'know, serial numbers.)

Since Hawaii records show that these long-form documents were available at the time, why hasn’t Obama released his, and why has the hospital refused to release it?

At the time, Obama himself was probably too young to keep hold of the thing, being just born’n'all… His mother may’ve received one, but those things have a way of getting misplaced, especially in cases where mom has since passed on.

When you apply to the state of Hawaii for proof of birth, you receive a certified COLB, which is what’s pictured above. According to factcheck.org, “The Hawaii Department of Health’s birth record request form does not give the option to request a photocopy of your long-form birth certificate, but their short form has enough information to be acceptable to the State Department.”

If I had to guess as to why President Obama hasn’t found a way to get a copy of his long form certificate out there to appease every crank and asshole who remains unconvinced by the standard short-form COLB that Hawaii uses, I’d say that 1) the short form COLB actually IS sufficient proof of his eligibility for everyone who isn't a crank or an asshole, and 2) speculation by birfers like Dr Douglas has been a net positive, politically (yeah, even now, when apparently 6 out of 10 Americans fall into the crank / asshole / birther category).

there were multiple ways to obtain a Hawaiian COLB that would leave open the possibility that the person in question was born outside of the state.

Even assuming this is true, (which I obviously doubt) wouldn’t it be incumbent on the person making the charge to prove that President Obama’s Hawaiian COLB actually was obtained in a way that left that possibility open, or is it enough to simply speculate that it might've been, in some mysterious, unspecified way?

Thus, it’s possible that a child born outside Hawaii could still receive a state COLB.

And it’s your assertion that not only might Obama or someone in around him, either back in 1961 or in 2007 have received one like this, but that the COLB in question would falsely report that the child was born in a particular part of Hawaii, too? Based on what? Is anyone credibly making the claim that this did happen, or is this just more of that "well... it coulda happened, somehow..." speculation?

As of today, it is still possible for a child born outside of Hawaii to obtain a short-form COLB using official state form s338-17.8. Go ahead and search it on Google.

The danger of suggesting a dare like that is that someone will actually do it.

[§338-17.8] Certificates for children born out of State. (a) Upon application of an adult or the legal parents of a minor child, the director of health shall issue a birth certificate for such adult or minor, provided that proof has been submitted to the director of health that the legal parents of such individual while living without the Territory or State of Hawaii had declared the Territory or State of Hawaii as their legal residence for at least one year immediately preceding the birth or adoption of such child.

(b) Proof of legal residency shall be submitted to the director of health in any manner that the director shall deem appropriate. The director of health may also adopt any rules pursuant to chapter 91 that he or she may deem necessary or proper to prevent fraudulent applications for birth certificates and to require any further information or proof of events necessary for completion of a birth certificate.

(c) The fee for each application for registration shall be established by rule adopted pursuant to chapter 91. [L 1982, c 182, §1]

So yes, within one year of a child’s birth, a parent who can establish proof of legal residency in Hawaii for at least one year immediately prior to the child’s birth can obtain a COLB for a child born elsewhere. But nothing suggests that the place of birth for a child born outside of Hawaii would falsely be listed on the COLB as being in a particular city in Hawaii, so I fail to see the significance of this document. (It is also possible to get such a COLB after one year, but it is marked and certified as being a late filing, making it more suspect.)

"Also, newspaper announcements are not legal proof of official birth."

No, the COLB is legal proof of official birth, including specifying place of birth. A pair of contemporaneous 1961 birth announcements in local papers, however, are evidence (even suitable for use in a court of law) that the birth took place in the time and at the place named on the COLB.

Empiricism requires evidence. And in the case of the birth of Barack Hussein Obama, that evidence is virtually entirely absent.

I can appreciate that this is difficult for you Dr Douglas, but the COLB issued and certified by the Hawaii Department of Health, and vouched for by both the head of records and the Republican governor, as well as two contemporaneous newspaper birth announcements offering information consistent with the information found on the COLB, is the evidence you insist does not exist. According to snopes.com and the documents and reports they in turn cite, there is at least one person--a friend of the daughter of the doctor who delivered President Obama--who reports knowing about the birth at the time it happened.

Individuals certainly can deny and dismiss this evidence and otherwise claim it is insufficient to convince them--preferring it seems, wild claims of incompetent or unscrupulous record-keepers in cahoots with equally unscrupulous family members who knew that this young foreign, altogether alien child would one day run for US President, faking either the documents themselves or the portions that would otherwise prove persuasive (with even less evidence than is presented by the non-birther crowd, I hasten to add)--but that doesn't mean that the evidence ceases to exist. The truth is out there, Dr Douglas... in Hawaii, and on the internets...

As I said to back in December, if you talk like a birther and make birther arguments, you’re a birther. No need to be embarrassed about it (well, there is, but…) Embrace it, Donald Douglas. You’re a Worldnet Daily reading, Corso-conspiracy-minded birther, and if this is who you're gonna be, you should stop denying it and instead be proud of it. (Now, how long will it be until my friend Mick, the birther, shows up in the comments, to tell me the REAL PURPOSE of my post and go on about the original interpretation of the Constitution and how Vattel's "Law of Nations" informed all who had a hand in creating the document, and thus what they really meant by their words.)
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